NASA inches towards multi-billion dollar IT contracts

NASA says it’s on track to open competition as early as Dec. 4 for the first project in a series of large information technology services contracts that have been estimated to be worth more than $4 billion total.

NASA plans to award five contracts as part of the Information Technology Infrastructure Integration Program (I3P) acquisition to consolidate the agency's IT and data services. Input Inc., a market research firm, has estimated the total value for the five contracts, based on NASA’s draft RFPs, to be $4.3 billion. The services contracts would consolidate current NASA contracts such as the Outsourcing Desktop Initiative for NASA and Unified NASA Information Technology Services.

The agency could release the Web Enterprise Service Technologies (WEST) final request for proposal (RFP) as early as Dec. 4, NASA said on Nov. 20. WEST would be a contract for public Web site hosting, Web content management, messaging and calendar services.

In addition, NASA said on Nov. 25 that it plans to release on or about Dec. 11 a final RFP for the NASA Integrated Communications Services or NICS contract for wide area network services, local area network services, telecommunications services, video services, and data services.

The agency also plans to release a final RFP for the Enterprise Applications Service Technologies or EAST contract for services that involve NASA’s Enterprise Applications Competency Center on or about Dec. 18, the agency said.

However, the projects that are estimated to be the most expensive, the NASA Enterprise Data Center or NEDC contract for data center operations and facility management, and the Agency Consolidated End User Services, or ACES contract, for program management, support for personal computers, cell phones and personal digital assistants, won’t be out until next year.

Earlier NASA had said that some RFPs for I3P could be released as early as Sept. 22, but the agency revised that timeline after NASA’s new chief information officer, Linda Cureton, took over and began a review of the RFPs.

About the Author

Ben Bain is a reporter for Federal Computer Week.

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